Deep Down Dead Read online

  Gunner looked past me, towards the pup, and nodded.

  What happened next flowed real fast. Overeager to obey his master and get started on me, the pup closed his grimy fingers tight around my shoulders and pulled me back towards him. Well, manhandling a girl from behind without invitation is just plain rude.

  I thrust my weight rearwards, accelerating fast, using the momentum to throw him off balance. He staggered back. Advantage: me. Whipping round, I slammed the side of my clenched left fist into his temple and followed it real quick with a right-handed punch to the throat.

  One-two, the pup hit the floor before he’d barely registered the blows. The semi-automatic fell from his grip. I guessed he was weaker than he’d acted. From his wide-eyed expression and the wheezy gasps he was making at my feet, I reckoned he’d just realised that too.

  I kicked his weapon out of reach and spun to face the others.

  Gunner looked at the pup, real disappointed. ‘Beat by a damn girl, that’s plain embarrassing.’ He glanced at the weasel-faced man. ‘Show the boy how it’s done.’

  Weasel-face threw himself at me. I deflected his first blow with my left forearm and punched him in the stomach. He groaned, but kept on coming, grabbing for my hair. The skull thumb ring on his left hand glinted in the artificial light. I feigned left and moved right, but he was too fast. He yanked me to him, twisting me around, so his forearm was across my throat and the bulk of his body was pressed up against my back. He smelt of stale sweat and tequila. I had to get out of this. These men couldn’t get near Dakota.

  ‘Feisty, ain’t you?’ Weasel-face growled in my ear. ‘I like a woman with a bit of spirit.’

  Gunner laughed. ‘Seems this one ain’t broken to saddle.’

  Weasel-face ran his free hand up from my waist, across my stomach to my breast and pinched my nipple hard. ‘Best get her taught.’

  No way was that going to happen. Focus. I took a breath, then kicked back hard as I could. The heel of my cowboy boot struck Weasel-face’s kneecap. I heard the pop as cartilage and muscle gave in to the pressure. Weasel-face howled. His grip around my throat loosened, but didn’t yield.

  I pivoted left, pushing my chin into the crook of his elbow and my hips sideways. His arm tensed across my throat. I jabbed my elbow fast up under his ribs. As he doubled over, my second blow caught him hard in the groin. He stepped back on to his busted leg. Wrong move. I heard his knee crack and watched him drop like a felled maple.

  The game had tipped in my favour: two out of three down, one to finish.

  Gunner, by my reckoning the leader of this band of lowlifes, grinned a yellow-toothed smile. He beckoned me forward. ‘Seems like you need to learn some manners.’

  ‘Seems you should learn them yourself.’

  I reached for my X2 Taser. Too slow. I was still releasing it from the holster when Gunner lunged at me, his shoulder slamming me hard to the ground. I gasped, winded, and then he was on top of me, grabbing for my wrists.

  I struggled against his bulk, beating on any bit of him I could reach. I couldn’t let him get a hold of my hands. If he did I’d be powerless and he knew it.

  His fist slammed into my face. I felt my lip split and the metallic taste of blood in my mouth. I thrashed wilder, twisting on to my side. He punched: my ribs, my shoulders, my head. But he had less power at this angle. As he yanked me round to face him I planted a decent right hook to the side of his jaw. That surprised him. Grabbing his right ear, I dug my nails into his flesh and used the momentum and his moment of recoil to yank him sideways, propelling him on to his back, me on top. I dug my knees in tight to his ribs like I was a champion bull rider playing for the title.

  ‘Bitch,’ he spat. I felt a whoosh of air near my left ear and ducked. The knife in his hand glinted silver.

  I slammed the side of my clenched fist hard into the bridge of his nose. Heard it break. He wheezed, coughing blood, and loosened his grip on the knife. I prised it from his fingers.

  He tried to punch me, but his aim was off. I dodged it. He grabbed one of my wrists instead. Out the corner of my eye I saw the pup moving towards me. Not good. I had to finish this.

  I plunged the knife hard into Gunner’s shoulder, twisting it, cutting into muscle and sinews, maximising the damage.

  As he yowled I leapt to my feet, aimed a kick at the pup’s head and brought him down. Gunner was still moving. I rolled him on to his front and pulled his arms behind his back. Hard as it was, I fought to keep him still enough to get a pair of plasticuffs around his wrists. He floundered around like a landed fish. Damn redneck didn’t know when he was beat. I stamped the heel of my boot hard into his back and tugged his arms higher, twisting them in their sockets. Must have hurt like a bitch with that shoulder wound. He roared in fury.

  The plasticuffs slotted into place. I strode around to face him. ‘Attacking a woman? Weren’t you boys raised right?’

  Gunner spat at me.

  ‘Your momma must be real proud,’ I said, shaking my head.

  I glanced at the other two. The pup was out cold. Weasel-face was down and whimpering. His leg was twisted out at the knee at the strangest angle.

  The game was mine: three out of three, a perfect score. Now I had to find JT.

  As I moved across the room to the hallway, I noticed the semi-automatic was wedged snug against the dresser. I couldn’t leave it. I nudged it free with the toe of my boot, and kicked it along the floor in front of me as I stepped into the hallway.

  The heels of my boots knocked a cautious beat across the wooden floor. Pressing my back against the wall, I peered around the doorframe into the next room. A kitchen. Dark and empty. Ahead there was one final room before the stairway. The door was shut.

  Standing to one side, I gently turned the doorknob. It moved a small way, then stuck. Locked.

  Interesting. It seemed these boys had been holding JT prisoner. I’d gotten the sense from Quinn that this deal was civilised, that JT was willing to come in. Maybe Merv’s crew were local boys looking to cash in on the bond by helping him out. But even with what I knew of Merv’s reputation, it didn’t make sense for them to attack me. We were meant to be on the same side.

  Whatever the reason, I needed to get JT and get gone. That left me with a few choices: pick the lock – but I only had the knife to hand; shoot the lock off, but that would mean me using the semi-automatic, which I couldn’t handle; or kick the door in. The first would take time, the second two would announce to whoever was inside I was coming.

  I heard shuffling noises from the front room. Had the pup come to? I needed to move fast. There was no time for finesse.

  I kicked the door a few inches shy of the doorknob. The wood was old and brittle; a split appeared, but it didn’t give. I heard a muffled shout from the other side; a man’s voice, JT’s perhaps. I kicked again, harder. The wood splintered apart, the middle panel collapsed into the room.

  I peered through the gap. A single chair was bolted to the floor in the centre of the room, a man tied to it. He smiled, and I felt my breath catch in my throat.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Lori.’

  4

  His smile had me ruined from the first time we’d met. Of course, ten years ago I was younger, more naïve and a whole lot less wilful than I am now. Still, I had known he’d been drinking bourbon – I’d smelt it on his breath as he’d said good evening. Right then my head had told me, girl, you go sit someplace else. But my heart, or perhaps somewhere a little further south, knew the barstool right alongside his was the place I had to be.

  So I broke my rule of never socialising with a customer and I smiled at him, not with my red-lips-empty-promises work smile, which made men kid themselves that I might give them a ride, but with something a little more genuine. Somehow, I knew he was different.

  Not a cop. Plenty came through here, most of them off the clock. But this guy’s energy was all wrong for that. He was something else. Kinda mysterious. I liked that.

  Anyways, that sc
ent of aged bourbon with a base-note aroma of tobacco worked real well on him. What with the dark-blond hair that fell over his eyes and the two-day-old stubble lingering across his jaw, he looked a dirty kind of perfect: big and dangerous and sexy as hell.

  He turned. Met my gaze. ‘Drink?’

  I nodded. The thumping music and drunken crowd around us seemed to fade out to nothing. And sure, I knew that I shouldn’t have been sitting with him, that I should have been checking my make-up, using my ten-minute break to get ready for my next dance. But I stayed right there. Just plain did not want to move. Instead I held his gaze, worked my lashes and asked, ‘How are you liking the show?’

  He said nothing. Paid the barkeep to leave the bottle and sloshed three fingers of bourbon into two glasses.

  For two of my ten minutes we drank in silence. I noticed his fingers were long, ringless and real elegant, aside from the purple bruising across the knuckles of his left hand.

  He caught me looking. Shrugged. ‘Occupational hazard.’

  ‘What occupation?’

  ‘A measure of last resort. Finding them that don’t want to get found.’

  Not a cop, for sure. But what? ‘So why’d you ask for me?’

  He ignored my question. Picked up the bourbon and splashed another triple into his glass.

  I sipped at my whiskey, watched him gulp his. His Adam’s apple moved as he drank it down. I wanted to lean in closer, run my tongue across his throat, over that stubble, to his lips. Find out if he tasted as good as he looked.

  In the fourth minute he got around to the why.

  ‘I need your help,’ he said, all earnest in that deep-gravel voice of his that made every word sound both serious and smutty all at once. Then he smiled. Not a big, false, you-can-trust-me smile, like every lying cheater had given me since my curves filled out nice. But a small, almost bashful smile that tweaked up one corner of his mouth a fraction higher than the other.

  I pouted just a little more and asked, ‘How so?’

  ‘We’ve a mutual Person of Interest.’

  I couldn’t think who. ‘Person got a name?’

  ‘Thomas Ford.’

  My stomach lurched, and not from the whiskey. ‘Is that right?’

  The big guy nodded. ‘You tell me where he’s at, things could work out nice for the both of us.’

  He held my gaze. His face looked honest, and his expression seemed to tell me that everything would work out just fine. I wanted to believe him, really I did. But life had taught me otherwise. And what could he really know about me, my problems? I never wore my wedding band when I was working.

  So I didn’t answer, couldn’t find the words. Looked away.

  Over by the stage, Old Hank was jumping about like a rodeo clown, gesturing at me: two minutes.

  I slid off the barstool. Took a moment to steady myself then thrust into the crowd and went back to work. Tried not to show that my hands were shaking.

  Sal was entertaining a table of young moneyed types. She was sitting astride one, grinding against his lap, letting him and his three friends touch far more than they ought. As I passed she raised an eyebrow.

  I paid her no mind. Strode backstage to get ready. Tried real hard not to think on the big guy’s words: Person of Interest. Thomas Ford. Work out nice. Because no matter who he was – cop, PI or whatever else – I knew that he was wrong.

  No good would ever come from something involving my husband. Fact. But still, in that moment, I sure wished I could believe otherwise.

  I was still thinking on it as the stage lights dimmed. Old Hank, with his greased-back hair and nineties throwback suit, stood out front and shouted into the mic, ‘And here she is, the gal y’all have been waiting for, tonight’s feature attraction, Miss Whiskey Bang-Bang.’

  And, by Whiskey Bang-Bang, he, of course, meant me.

  The beat started. The velvet curtain opened. The spotlights lit the stage, blinding my view of the audience. I strutted through the dry ice to start my act as I had done so many times before. But that night, as the sultry tones of Peggy Lee sang ‘Fever’, I couldn’t shake the memory of the big guy at the bar. Of the chance he’d offered me. Of his smile. So bashful. So honest. So hot.

  I performed for that smile. Imagined it was his touch on my skin, his hands unhooking my bra, his fingers peeling down my panties. When my dance ended I’d gotten more dollars for that one performance than I ever had in a whole night. The stage was covered with bills: tens, twenties, fifties and more.

  The spotlights dimmed and the houselights came up. I peered out towards the bar. The stool he’d been sitting on was empty. In that crowded, smoke-filled room, as the barflies whooped and clapped, I felt his absence like a punch to the chest.

  He’d gone is all, and I was just as I always would be.

  Alone.

  5

  The night I first met JT, my husband had been gone eighteen days. Tommy had never liked my line of work, although that didn’t stop him using my wages to fund his gambling habit. After seven years together I hardly remembered things hadn’t always played that way. See, grief can change a person; harden them into granite until no amount of loving can soften their heart. For the past three years of our married life we’d gotten ourselves into a familiar pattern: I’d work, he’d bitch, we’d fight.

  What happened then oftentimes depended on his state of mind. If he was sober he’d take off for a day or two, do some gambling and most likely some whoring, then come back and there’d be a truce for a short while. But if he’d been on the tequila things tended to turn ugly. He’d throw stuff: my china, his fist. Eighteen days ago he’d taken things to a whole other level. He’d grabbed a fistful of my blonde hair, right up by my brunette roots, and smacked my head against the nice china cabinet my grand-mammy left me when she passed.

  The impact broke one of the glass panes. I’d yelled out, on account of the pain in my head and the destruction of the furniture. Wild-cat fury altered the tone of my voice. Made it raw, more animal. I’d never seen Tommy look so shocked.

  Still, I’d expected him to come home once he’d cooled off some, tail between his legs and acting all sorry, as was his way. But he didn’t. At that moment I didn’t understand why. And I wouldn’t until later.

  Neither did I realise that the seemingly chance meeting with a stranger would set me on course for a real open-your-legs (or your eyes) moment, although as time played out I chose to do both. On stage I might have played the part of Whiskey Bang-Bang, but in real life I was still plain old Jennifer Lorelli Ford.

  That night, as I came off stage, my hands full of sweaty dollars and the crumpled lace of my panties, the big stranger’s words repeated in my mind: I need your help.

  Needed help, my ass. He hadn’t even stuck around to find out my answer. And what kind of a man leaves a titty bar when he’s still got a half-bottle of bourbon with his name on it and a quality act giving her all on stage?

  Stomping into the little space out back that served as a dressing room for us dancers, I ignored Sal, who was sat at her mirror, kicked off my glitter, fuck-me pumps, chucked the dollars on to the table and plonked down in my chair naked. I yelped as I felt a sharp pain. Twisted in the chair. Cursed as I picked a splinter the size of a toothpick from the right cheek of my butt. Madison Square Garden that shithole certainly wasn’t.

  I glared at the girl in the mirror. She didn’t look so hot: too much make-up, too little sleep. I pulled off the long black ‘Cher in Vegas’ wig that turned me into Whiskey and shook out my hair from the braid beneath. It felt greasy to my touch. A yellowing bruise was just visible where my foundation faded into the hairline around my right temple. Damaged goods. No wonder the big guy didn’t stay.

  On the other side of the room Sal swivelled her chair round to face me. ‘Temper, temper. So who was he?’

  I glared at her in the mirror. Shook my head.

  Unfazed, she continued wiping off her candy shimmer eye make-up. ‘Oh, come on. Spill.’

 
Shivering, I pulled the tattered red silk robe from the back of the chair and wrapped it around me. ‘Just some guy.’

  ‘Nah-ah. You were having something intense.’

  I grabbed the cleanser from the assorted potions on my dressing table, tipped some on to a cotton pad and scrubbed at my face. ‘It was just business.’

  A goofy smile spread across her face. ‘He was dreamy. You could—’

  I shoved my wedding band back on to my ring finger and held it up. ‘I’m married, Sal.’

  ‘I wasn’t saying you—’

  ‘He was just a mark. You know the rules. Leave it, okay?’ An instruction, not a request. I used to be a romantic, way back when my fifteen-year-old self met Tommy. Punch by punch he’d knocked the fairy tales clean out of me.

  Sal sighed and turned back to her mirror.

  I’d been mean, and I knew it. At seventeen, she was a sweet kid, but even more delusional than I had been at that age – still waiting for her knight to pitch up on some mighty steed and rescue her. She didn’t get that the guys who’d visit with us were about as far from knights as we were from ballerinas.

  At almost twenty-two I’d seen what this business could do. When Sal arrived fresh off the bus from Nebraska, looking for a new life in the sunshine state, away from her Momma’s overfriendly boyfriend, she’d gotten a job at the Bang-Bang Bar to help pay her way through school. I was real determined not to let her get chewed up and spat out like so many of the other girls had been. So far, she’d been doing pretty well.

  Scraping my hair into a low pony, I watched her in the mirror as she pulled on jeans and a pink sweater with silver sequins along the seams. Damn, that girl never wore anything dull. Even the ends of her dark-brown hair were dip-dyed bright pink.

  She caught my eye and smiled. Guilt had me smile back at her.

  Grabbing her purse, she came across and hugged me. ‘Maybe Tommy’s not coming back this time.’